Day 20: Fear

How do you face your fears? We all have them and most of us have developed various coping skills.  When I was small and afraid at night I leaned on the scripture, "What time I am afraid I will trust in thee" Psalm 56:3.  I would repeat it over and over until I finally felt calm.

When my husband took a job that required him to work the night shift, I was afraid.  We lived in a suburb at the time, and I had always been used to living out in the country.  I would open my bible to Psalm 91 and read it over and over until I could sleep.  I would often wake up with the bible open laying on my tummy. Eventually I got over my fears and could sleep like a rock whether I was alone or not.

Every experience you face and get through becomes ground to stand upon when the next fear comes.  If He helped before, He can help again.  So far, I have faced:

• A wreck in which I was injured.  Sometimes I can close my eyes and still see our truck sliding off the road into a ditch flipping over until it came to a stop.
• The day I found out my husband had lost his job - and I had just found out I was pregnant.
• My labor with my second baby where I was truly convinced she was not going to be able to get out and we would both die. I was telling my husband what to tell our first daughter as she grew up without her mommy!
• The first time my husband had to be hospitalized and I was informed, "To be on the safe side, we are putting him on suicide watch." I thought that would be the lowest point of my life.
• The second time my husband was hospitalized, I had to take him to a facility 1 1/2 hours away at night and our vehicle kept breaking down.  We managed to get to the hospital and I had to spend the night in a waiting room crying and praying and trying to figure out how to get home.
• The day my husband's doctor said, "You know he will never work again, right?"  I felt as if I had been slapped in the face.  I was working only 20 hours a week with three kids.  I was definitely afraid I would never be able to support us.

Guess what?  Every. Time. God. Came through for me! I'm here to tell you we made it.  And all the other things that have happened since.  (You don't know fear until you live through the antics of some of my girls' teen years! I am. Not. Even. Kidding.)


You know what?  I still repeat Psalm 56:3 when fear tries to creep in.  Works every time.

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I confess I wrote longer than 5 minutes on this topic. It's a subject I care deeply about and I've written other posts on being fearless.  Look under the tag fearless in my archives to read more.  (Subscribers, you will have to click through to my blog to find it.)

This post is Day 20 of a series entitled 31 Days of Life on the Journey where I share about my journey as a believer, wife, mom and grandmother.  I invite you to return each day to find the newest link here. Myquillin at The Nester is the creator of the 31 Day Challenge.  I'm linking this post to the category, "Faith and Inspiration." You can also visit Kate's blog, "Heading Home" to read the posts of all the other participants of the 31 day challenge who are writing on her daily prompts for 5 minutes. Today's prompt is "fear."

You can read each day's post in order as they are published by clicking on the link here. Or you could subscribe to my blog - I wouldn't want you to miss a thing! Just fill in your email address in the box below the words "Follow by email" second from the top in the upper right hand column.